Networking

Planned Activities:

Coming soon!

Past Activities:

Tour: Museum of Design – Atlanta (2014)

The Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) hosted a special exhibit titled “Drink in Design” in which visitors could learn about the origins/designs of useful everyday items such as Velcro and cans, all while sipping a drink on the house!

Tour: AT&T (2014)

Students toured the human factors department of the AT&T offices in Atlanta and spoke with current employees about research and career opportunities at AT&T.

Tour: Kimberly-Clark

The tour began with introductions and moved quickly to demonstrations and tours covering method development, comfort and fit testing, dispensing, skin testing, physiological testing. It concluded with a tour of the KimSim lab—a simulated hospital room—where a lot of human factors testing is done for medical devices. This portion of the tour was led by the Design team.

Tour: MeadWestvaco

The chapter toured Meadwestvaco. During the tour, the chapter learned about Project Neptune – This project centers around hydration multipacks (bottled water, enhanced water, sports beverages) and the unmet consumer needs associated. Ethnographic research, focus group, and quantitative consumer insights would be covered. We would also review how this research leads to package design concept, product selection, and pricing. The tour also included Q&A; Interactive “what’s next?” How would the group go from concept to commercialization? Finally, the chapter toured the Atlanta design facilities. This is one of the largest paperboard carton converting facilities in North America. This is also where FridgeMaster® / FridgePack is made.

Tour: BigBang

Big Bang helps companies develop products and services with an understanding that there are two distinct new product development goals: discovering what’s next and implementing products today. Each requires a very different set of processes and tools.” The Big Bang tour consisted primarily of a presentation covering the process (discovery and implementation) used specifically at the company, as well as a very extensive Q&A session. The CEO of the company gave the overview and therefore had a lot of knowledge not only about his own company but other companies, large and small, in the field. They presented us with overviews of many of the projects they had worked on, as well as discussed the methods and tools they use in each phase of their process.

Tour: Lockheed Martin

As a joint event with HFES-ATL, the Chapter toured Lockheed Martin. The tour began with a brief presentation by several of the employees at Lockheed. They spoke about the role of the human factors team at the company, and how they interact with other teams on various projects. Next, we were given guided tours of the aircraft hangar and two flight simulators where interface solutions are tested. We were given the opportunity to fly each of the simulators. The tour ended with a relatively in-depth presentation about an empirical study carried out, in which a small visual design modification was shown to have a substantial impact on pilots’ control of the aircraft.

Speaker: Bill Johnson

This talk was co-organized with the HFES Atlanta Chapter. Bill Johnson, PhD, a member of the HFES Atlanta Chapter, was invited to Georgia Tech School of Psychology to speak. The student chapter provided refreshments. Dr. Johnson spoke about aviation maintenance and human factors and ergonomics related issues in training workers that perform this job.

Speaker: Frank Durso

This talk was co-organized with the HFES Atlanta Chapter. Francis T. (Frank) Durso, a Professor of Psychology at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the Engineering Psychology program, was invited to speak. Dr. Durso’s current research interests focus on cognitive and strategic factors responsible for managing and updating dynamic situations such as those found in air traffic control and health care as well as the causes of comprehension lapses in such domains.

Speaker: Linda Elliott

This talk was co-organized with the HFES Atlanta Chapter. Dr. Linda Elliott’s presentation was titled “Overview of Human Factors Research at Fort Benning: Robots, night vision, and tactile systems.” Linda R. Elliott, PhD, is a research psychologist at the Army Research Lab – Human Research and Engineering Directorate (ARL/HRED) field element located at the US Army Infantry Center, Fort Benning, Georgia.

Here’s your chance to vent about all those annoying and poorly designed nuisances you encounter in your daily life. You might even win money with your choice of bad design!

Submit a short description of an example of a bad design and how it could be better, and you could win up to $75! Plus, network with industry judges, add to your portfolio, and see your work in promotional materials!